One day after Senate Republicans held a press conference to question this weeks State Departments report on the Sept. 11 terrorist attack in Libya that left four Americans dead, Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe said the scandal is bigger than Watergate and Iran-Contra.

I have made a study of different cover-ups  the Pentagon Papers, Watergate and Iran-Contra. Ive never seen anything like it. I think this is probably the greatest cover-up, in my memory anyway, the Oklahoma Republican said in an interview Saturday night on Fox News.

Republican senators John McCain of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire said Friday that the State Department report does not address questions about the role of Cabinet officials in responding to the assault that night.

Mr. Inhofe said that, despite the report and testimony before Congress this week, the Obama administration still has not explained adequately why the mention of al Queda was deleted from the talking points given to U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice.

They dont talk about this, they dont talk about who changed this, who was the boss of the cover-up and what was the motive, Mr. Inhofe said. We know what the motive was, this was before the election. And Obama had been saying he had done away with al Qaeda. Well, positively this was al Qaeda.

In testimony before House lawmakers Thursday, Deputy Secretary of State William Burns said that, while Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton and other senior officials had been briefed about the security situation in Libya, decisions about security were made at the assistant secretary level.

Four State Department officials were relieved of their duties this week over the report, and the three who were identified held posts at the assistant secretary or deputy assistant secretary level.

#2
I'm obviously not privy to the sordid details or truth, but I know a thing or two about the identification of obfuscation and denial and one thing for dead certain. This talk about there not being enough time to conduct some sort of military operation is total rubbish. Something was going on in Benghazi that no one wishes to talk about and four Americans got terrible dead over it. The families of the dead deserve an answer. The American people deserve an answer. Unfortunately we are being lied to and told to fok off. Something much larger was in play here. I hope my days are lengthy enough to at some point discover what it was.

#7
Agree, JohnQC. We have seen enough to know Fast & Furious was much more than incompetence, and we have seen the amount of effort invested in covering that up; with comparable cover-up going on over Benghazi we must conclude it too is not a case of simple incompetence, but involves something seriously illegal and probably evil.

#8
There are the stories and rumors that we were working with certain people to deliver old Libyan arms to the Syrian rebels, and that Benghazi was a key trans-shipment point for that. I've seen that mentioned in a few places but nowhere authoritative.

Makes me wonder if al-Qaeda was trying to grab guns, or whether they were in the operation a lot deeper than that. For example, we know now that a number of the Syrian rebel groups are very Islamicist -- they might have had groups in Libya that were tied to them, and al Qaeda may in turn have been nestled inside those groups.

So Amb. Stevens may actually have been working with al-Q -- would he have known that? Or was he trying to keep al-Q out of the arms transfers?

Just this one angle alone would take considerable resources to figure out. And as a good progressive would say, I'm just asking a question.

#9
I have fired a few infantry mortars. It takes a tremendous amount of luck.... or a considerable amount of expertise to land a mortar round directly atop a building and take out a sniper. When the assault began to drag on and on, could someone have been observing and coaching at a distance, then entering the fray directly to 'kicked it up a notch'? No one talks about voice intercepts. How terribly convenient.

#1
All of this In a State where there is no concealed carry, and in a city where handguns are outlawed. All firearms owners however, must possess a State issued 'Firearms Owner's ID' with photograph in order to buy weapons, ammo, or become legal owners. The transport of firearms must be done with the weapon unloaded, and in a case.

So much for gun laws taking care of gun crime. As always, the law abiding citizen complies with the law whilst the criminal ignores it.

#4
Should we take another look at gun-walking programs in the U.S. to understand gang violence in Chicago and other cities?

PJ Media and Univision pointed out: The Department of Justice has denied the existence of such programs, despite the physical evidence of guns recovered suggesting otherwise. While the Univision report focused on guns the DOJ ran to Mexican cartels, there is enough evidence to suggest other Obama administration-sanctioned gun-walking plots arming domestic criminal gangs, such as the so-called Gangwalker plot in Indiana, which supplied Chicago street gangs, and similar rumored operations in California, North Carolina, northern Florida, and elsewhere, which provided weapons to gangs in U.S. cities. Nor has the Univision report focused on weapons that have found their way to cartels via the State Department or the Department of Defense.

#8
Interesting table, GBUSMC. While knives are overwhelmingly more used than long guns of all types combined, blunt instruments, and fists and feet are each more used than rifles, assault-style or otherwise.

[Fox News] Sen. John F. I was in Vietnam, you know KerrySenator-for-Life from Massachussetts, the Senate's current foreign policy expert, filling the vacated wingtips of Joe Biden... appears to have bipartisan support for becoming the next secretary of state -- with a long history of public service that makes him one of Washington's most seasoned foreign policy experts and most liberal Democrats.

Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, started garnering Republican support practically from the time U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice's potential nomination began unraveling last month and he emerged as President B.O.'s next likely pick.

Sens. John Maverick McCain... the Senator-for-Life from Arizona, former presidential candidate and even more former foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution... , Ariz., and Lindsey Graham... the endangered South Carolina RINO..., S.C., Rice's harshest critics, both praised Kerry from the onset and continued this weekend to show support for his nomination.

Though Kerry is expected to sail through the Senate confirmation hearing, Graham and McCain have hinted the decorated Vietnam veteran will not get a free pass.

Graham called the 69-year-old Kerry a "solid choice."

McCain, also a Vietnam veteran, praise Kerry for serving the country with honor and distinction but said only that he looks forward to "considering" the nomination.

McCain also told Fox News that his decision will be based on whether he thinks Kerry has the ability to "carry out his responsibilities," not on their conflicting views, including Kerry saying in the early 1990s that President George H.W. Bush's Operation Desert Storm would fail.

Kerry, the son of a diplomat, is perhaps one of the most liberal voices in the Senate.

During his 27 years in the chamber, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee has characterized climate change as a national security threat and has pushed for the reduction the nuclear weapons.

A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.

Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.

Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.